Magnetic Motivation

Pizza is now off the menu.

Got to battle the bulge a bit so I can’t eat pizza anymore. The cheese has too many calories (and what is pizza without melty cheese you can sink your teeth in?) and the meat is a no-no too: ground beef, pepperoni, ham, chorizo — all processed.

I like veggies and olives, maybe even a little pineapple, but olives are supposed to be fattening and I’m not sure the veggies count towards my 5-a-day when they’re buried in cheese.

It also doesn’t matter whether you like deep, doughy crusts or thin, wood- oven baked, gotta cut down on the carbs. There’s probably something bad for me in all that rich tomatoey sauce too. So no more pizza for me.

Except … Anyone fancy pizza?

Goals That Take the Biscuit

According to market research giant Neilsen, the two top goals people set around New Year are:

· Stay Fit and Healthy (37% interviewed)

· Lose weight. (32% interviewed)

Add those numbers together and you have a significant percentage of goal makers being health focused with regards to their desires. So, no pizza for them either.

However, neither of those goals are positive, magnetic goals. Here’s why.

Many of us make our goals based on something that we don’t want. For example:

· I want to get out of debt

· I don’t want my thighs to wobble like they do

· I want less stress in my home life

· I want to stop arguing with my son all the time.

If we word our goals from this perspective, where is our focus? Past, present, or positive future?

Now, don’t get me wrong, understanding what you don’t want is a very important step in visualization and personal change. However, many people stop here and make their goals without taking the vital next step.

They are making their goals for their future from a place that says, ‘I’m not good enough, my life isn’t good enough’.

That is a not a productive attitude or a positive belief.

By writing a goal from this perspective their focus is on the past and on a negative situation, a cause for unhappiness and discontent.

With regards to our goals and desires, focus and perspective are all important.

What is better, to run from something or move towards something?

Back to the pizza.

If we focus on what we don’t want or can’t have, that is what we will end up filling our thoughts with, and our thoughts (if left unmanaged) become decisions, then actions.

Lisa Nicols puts it like this with regards to finance,

“When you focus on lack and scarcity and what you don’t have, you fuss about it with your family, you discuss it with your friends, you tell your children that you don’t have enough — ‘We don’t have enough for that, we can’t afford that’ — then you’ll never be able to afford it, because you begin to attract more of what you don’t have. If you want abundance, if you want prosperity, then focus on abundance. Focus on prosperity.” –Lisa Nicols

Let’s not stop at what we don’t want, what causes us stress and pain. Our train of thought needs to go to the next station: visualising what good thing wedo want.

When we do that, our focus shifts to a positive outcome, something that we can get excited about, something that we can want, and that goal has magnetic motivation for us to pull us forward.

End-means goals

When we visualise our end desire, we can then go about identifying what we need to do in order to make it happen.

If we work from the ‘means to an end’ perspective it can feel like a loooong road with only the hope of a positive outcome at the end. This is because our focus is still on the problem and the process, rather than on the positive outcome and the process of getting there.

Let’s look at shifting the emphasis on some of these common goals.

‘I want to lose weight’ now becomes: ‘I am strong and healthy. I have energy for life’.

But they mean the same thing, right? The difference is this.

The second goal is something that you can want. It’s written in present tense to help us to connect with it, to make it part of us now.

To go a step further and add another sentence that includes specifics makes the goal measurable and therefore more attainable.

For example, ‘I’m a size___, I go running twice a week for 40 minutes…’ Including numbers in our goals leaves us less wiggle room. We can measure our progress and lazerbeam our focus.

Dreaming never made anything so.

If we want 3D success we must plan well, plan smarter.

The mention of the negative aspect that you no longer want pollutes your goal, so don’t include it. Only feed yourself the positive to nourish your motivation and your mindset. Therefore, don’t mention the debt or the stress only the positive outcome: ‘I have a sound weekly and monthly budget, where I am able to save 10% of my income. I feel secure and in control.’

With goals about situations that are causing you stress, focus on the positive outcome that you want here too.

‘My son and I chat. We understand each other better and can discuss any issues with respect to find solutions.’

Now, we can look at what needs to happen to make this real. We ask some pointy questions to poke us in the direction of our answers: Do I understand my son? When could we just chat? Do I forgive when I’m offended? Do I treat him with respect?